A configuration management database (CMDB) is developed for managing configuration information related to all the components of an information system. Each of the components of an information technology (IT) system is managed by the CMDB as an object called a configuration item (CI). The CMDB is normally constructed by collecting or integrating data (corresponding to the CIs) managed in various types of management data repositories (MDRs).
The CMDB also manages relationships between the CIs. The “relationships” in this context may include various types of relationships such as dependence relationships or accessibility relationships in the IT system. Hence, a user may be able to identify relationships of all the components in the entire IT system by referring to management information of the CMDB.
Note that such CIs and the relationships may either be registered by a plurality of users or by employing a plurality of the MDRs as sources, based on the operations of the CMDB. Accordingly, a plurality of the relationships may be generated corresponding to an identical CI. As a result, an enormous amount of the management information may be registered in the CMDB. Hence, when a user refers to the management information of the CMDB as it is, the relationships between the CIs may be extremely complicated.
Further, even though the relationships of the identical CIs are referred to, types or ranges of the relationships that the users wish to refer to may vary with the respective users' interests. For example, some user may wish to limit referral to a relationship between a server and software installed in the server and refer to such a relationship in detail, whereas another user may wish to limit referral to relationships between domains of a network and servers belonging to the respective domains and refer to such relationships in detail.
Hence, a related art technology (e.g., Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2-073424, hereinafter referred to as “Patent Document 1”) proposes creating information for limiting the reference range of the management information of the CMDB (hereinafter called “filter information”).